Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Obama must save the nation's public lands from excessive energy demands, former Interior Secretary Babbitt says

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt called for an end to the oil
and gas industry's pursuit of public lands at a Feb. 5 Newsmaker press
conference at the National Press Club. President Obama should "embrace a simple, powerful, and practical
principle that will, once again, place the conservation of America's
lands on equal ground with energy development," Babbitt said. While Babbitt praised some of Obama's energy and environmental
policies on vehicle fuel efficiency standards, renewable energy and
carbon emissions, he lashed out at oil and gas industry lobbyists and
unnamed members of Congress for failing to support the nation's need to
balance the protection of public lands with the need for oil and gas
development. Babbitt said 30 bills aimed at protecting public lands
await Congressional action. Many states have landmarks they want to honor and protect, he said. "What about conservation?" he asked. "Where is the balance?" He harked back to Theodore Roosevelt as one of history's greatest presidents for ensuring that balance. "Theodore Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to save the Grand
Canyon. Herbert Hoover used it to save Death Valley ... Franklin
Roosevelt to preserve the Grand Tetons," he said. He said Obama could use it to protect the Grande del Norte, the
Oregon Mountain-Desert Peaks in New Mexico and other national treasurers
in the state of Washington, California...more